Some nuances I decided not to include in the main post:
1. The first stealth airplanes were mostly dominated by shape by not entirely. They also used radar absorbing materials. Maybe 3 OOMs shape, 1 OOM absorption was an estimate given by an expert. So shape gets most of the Shapley but not entirely. 2. Flat surfaces were the main design principle of first-gen stealth airplanes but modern software have allowed people to figure out curved surfaces that still doesn’t reflect radio echoes to the sender-receiver. Still, if you look at pictures of modern stealth airplanes they still look much more angular and flat than old airplanes, or passenger aircraft. 3. Modern stealth airplanes and radar detection have to adapt in a sort of Red-Queen race situation so the simple bouncing technique doesn’t fully work anymore. I didn’t closely investigate why. 4. I simplified stealth as “evading radar” but of course there are other detection methods (sight, sonar, thermal detection). Eg reducing your jet planes’ heat signatures is important to modern stealth as well. But I didn’t think it’s as relevant to the main argument. 5. My argument/analysis here works for any sender-receiver style. Eg it also works for echolocation and bats (interestingly, and sadly in my view, bats often die by killing themselves on stealth airplanes). Radar has structural advantages over sonar (sound waves) and light. This is why militaries use them. I didn’t bother clarifying this as it is not relevant to the core of stealth technology.
A part of me that lived through being bombed by F117 in my childhood and rejoicing at our military taking one down despite it’s stealth, cannot help but feel like the nerdy aspects of the post and comment (which excite me too) are more saddened by bats dying than the fact that these are weapons of war that kill sometimes civilians?
Hmm my general take on this is that war is bad! It is frequently irrational, and always destructive I’d like there to be less war. Conditional upon there being war however, I think the sadness of weapons causing people to die is sort of “priced in”[1], whereas the death of the bats was idiosyncratic and particular to stealth technology specifically.
I do get what you’re saying, and I apologize if my post was insensitive. For what it’s worth, my impression is that other things I’ve seen covering weapons are substantially more cold-minded, and my full review of Skunk Works will investigate the ethical issues of working in the US military-industrial complex more thoroughly.
Thanks Linch, agreed on these points. I suppose if no sadness for bats was shown I’d look at it as an “emotionless piece on tech” and that’d be fine, but something about “and these kill bats” kicked me out of that and into noticing “and humans too, right?” Thank you for the empathy, I am looking forward to reading the whole thing!
Some nuances I decided not to include in the main post:
1. The first stealth airplanes were mostly dominated by shape by not entirely. They also used radar absorbing materials. Maybe 3 OOMs shape, 1 OOM absorption was an estimate given by an expert. So shape gets most of the Shapley but not entirely.
2. Flat surfaces were the main design principle of first-gen stealth airplanes but modern software have allowed people to figure out curved surfaces that still doesn’t reflect radio echoes to the sender-receiver. Still, if you look at pictures of modern stealth airplanes they still look much more angular and flat than old airplanes, or passenger aircraft.
3. Modern stealth airplanes and radar detection have to adapt in a sort of Red-Queen race situation so the simple bouncing technique doesn’t fully work anymore. I didn’t closely investigate why.
4. I simplified stealth as “evading radar” but of course there are other detection methods (sight, sonar, thermal detection). Eg reducing your jet planes’ heat signatures is important to modern stealth as well. But I didn’t think it’s as relevant to the main argument.
5. My argument/analysis here works for any sender-receiver style. Eg it also works for echolocation and bats (interestingly, and sadly in my view, bats often die by killing themselves on stealth airplanes). Radar has structural advantages over sonar (sound waves) and light. This is why militaries use them. I didn’t bother clarifying this as it is not relevant to the core of stealth technology.
A part of me that lived through being bombed by F117 in my childhood and rejoicing at our military taking one down despite it’s stealth, cannot help but feel like the nerdy aspects of the post and comment (which excite me too) are more saddened by bats dying than the fact that these are weapons of war that kill sometimes civilians?
Thanks for the feedback!
Hmm my general take on this is that war is bad! It is frequently irrational, and always destructive I’d like there to be less war. Conditional upon there being war however, I think the sadness of weapons causing people to die is sort of “priced in”[1], whereas the death of the bats was idiosyncratic and particular to stealth technology specifically.
I do get what you’re saying, and I apologize if my post was insensitive. For what it’s worth, my impression is that other things I’ve seen covering weapons are substantially more cold-minded, and my full review of Skunk Works will investigate the ethical issues of working in the US military-industrial complex more thoroughly.
Though I suppose you could make the argument that stealth is more offense dominant than defense dominant, unlike say trench-lines.
Thanks Linch, agreed on these points. I suppose if no sadness for bats was shown I’d look at it as an “emotionless piece on tech” and that’d be fine, but something about “and these kill bats” kicked me out of that and into noticing “and humans too, right?” Thank you for the empathy, I am looking forward to reading the whole thing!
Thanks for being nice about the whole thing! Would totally understand if you’re really angry given the context etc.